The Warrior King (Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page B

results. Gradually, however, he had grown accustomed to the dose. He had intended to increase his exposure to two grains this evening and continue for another fortnight.
    At the end he would be completely immune to the poison, at which point he would dissolve the rest of the packet into a cup of tea and drink it. After that, it was a simple matter of seeking out Faalam and finding a way to touch his skin several times: trip against his robes, feign drunkenness, shake his hand—whatever it took. The silver bite would rise to Chantmer’s skin and poison Faalam. It would either kill the eunuch or leave his senses permanently addled, but delivered in this diluted fashion, would do so slowly, so Chantmer would not be implicated. Either dead or crippled, the eunuch would be out of the way for good.
    But now he had no time for that. Chantmer’s spying had revealed that the sultan was tired of waiting and meant to take the girl for his harem tomorrow morning. After that, there would be trouble with the Balsalomians. Daniel considered himself as much the girl’s father as her uncle, and the former king of Eriscoba and the Free Kingdoms had recovered his strength and passion in the past few months.
    As distasteful as the sultan’s desires were, Chantmer would have reluctantly sacrificed the girl if necessary. But he couldn’t risk open conflict between Balsalom and Marrabat. That would spoil his gathering plan to reenter the war against the dark wizard and take the place that was rightfully his.
    “Well?” Sofiana demanded when Chantmer had spent several seconds thinking.
    “Faalam takes a cup of mint tea after his daytime nap. I will send you in with the other eunuchs and you will shift two grains of silver bite into his cup.”
    “Two grains? That’s all it will take?”
    “Any more and he would taste it, and then he would realize you’d poisoned him. But two grains will be sufficient to make him sick enough for you to escape.”
    “Why me? Why don’t you do it?”
    Chantmer sighed, loath to confess the true reason. “I’m not strong enough yet,” he admitted. “Faalam will detect my actions, and I can’t risk that.”
    “You can’t make him look away like you chased off those gardeners?”
    “No, I cannot. Those men were weak in the mind. The eunuch is something else entirely.”
    The other problem was, Faalam was no doubt acclimated to a number of poisons already, and while Chantmer had tried to choose a poison rare to the sultanates, one of them might be silver bite. If so, Faalam would instantly recognize the tingle on his tongue when he drank the tea.
    That would be a disaster on every level, but at least Chantmer would have a chance to flee the palace before they extracted the information from the girl under torture.
    Chantmer took back the packet with the silver bite. He removed a second, empty packet from the satchel at his waist and tapped in two solitary grains of the poison. After tying off the second packet, he told her he’d give it to her later, when she was bathed and perfumed, at which point she was to keep it concealed on her person.
    “So I’m not going to kill him,” Sofiana said again. She sounded disappointed. “Only make him sick. I suppose that would be wrong.”
    “That’s right. We’re not going to kill the eunuch. That would be wrong.”
    This part was a lie.
     
     

Chapter Five
    “Don’t tell me you trust Chantmer,” Darik said. He and Markal were waiting in the overgrown garden where Chantmer had left them.
    “Of course not.”
    Maybe it was the heat, almost smothering now even in the shade, or maybe it was the way that Markal sat casually with his back against the wall, peeling an orange and eating it in segments, but Darik felt his temper rising.
    He pulled off a sandal and slapped an ant that had crawled between his toes. “We chased the Betrayer through the mountains, fought him on the Tothian Way, and then spent eight days on the Spice Road with a bunch of salt